


you never know who understands

by dance_across



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos has an existential crisis, Gen, M/M, Pilot Episode, so does his Geiger counter, truly horrific punning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 07:06:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2182485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dance_across/pseuds/dance_across
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He gives it a little shake; maybe it’s broken. That’s when the needle starts wavering again. And suddenly, Carlos can hear Cecil’s voice. Coming from the Geiger counter.</i>
</p><p>Night Vale changes things, and Carlos is about to discover just how much. A coda to the very first episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you never know who understands

**Author's Note:**

> I'm truly, truly sorry. I'm sorry. I AM SO SORRY.
> 
> I am not actually that sorry.
> 
> (Title from "Are You Out There?" by Dar Williams.)

His Geiger counter is telling him to get the hell out of there, but his gut is telling him that it’s probably fine, and he can stay if he wants to. After all, everyone else is staying. Station Management, locked behind that door . . . the round-faced sales guy who introduced himself as Sean . . . that intern, who didn’t bother introducing herself at all . . . and Cecil Palmer, comfortably ensconced in his booth.

Cecil Palmer of the warm eyes, distant smile, and that _voice_.

That voice.

If it were any other voice telling Carlos that everything was “perfectly safe, well, at least as safe as it ever is, I mean what is safety anyway but the illusion that walls and locks and cardio can protect us from the inevitability of mortality?” – if _any other voice_ said that, Carlos would be panicking. But it wasn’t any other voice. It was Cecil’s voice.

And so, while Carlos manages to remember that Radiation Is Bad long enough to escape the building, he doesn’t actually go further than the parking lot.

He doesn’t even get as far as his car.

With the Geiger counter now silent in his hands, he sinks down to the curb just outside the station’s front doors. He frowns at the yellow box in his hands. His readings were off the charts just seconds ago, and now nothing? That doesn’t make sense.

He gives it a little shake; maybe it’s broken. It’s not exactly new, after all. Another shake, this time a little harder.

That’s when the needle starts wavering again. And suddenly, Carlos can hear Cecil’s voice.

Coming from the Geiger counter.

“. . . really went crazy! Carlos looked nervous. I’ve never seen that kind of look on someone with that strong of a jaw.”

Carlos absently runs his fingertips over his jaw, which is badly in need of a shave. He’s never thought of it as particularly strong. He frowns and keeps listening:

“He left in a hurry. Told us to evacuate the building. But then, who would be here to talk sweetly to all of you out there?”

Cecil’s voice has suddenly turned seductive, and that’s when Carlos finds himself blushing. He puts his hand on his cheek, flustered in every possible way – which is why it takes him a few seconds longer than it normally would to realize that the counter is beeping again. More radiation.

His brain and his PhD and his past experience all urge him to get up, unlock his car, and drive away . . . but he stays exactly where he is.

His Geiger counter is _broadcasting Cecil’s radio show._

“Good night, listeners,” says Cecil, his voice reaching out through speakers that aren’t even there, curling intimately into Carlos’s ears. “Good night.”

The outro music plays, then fades, and the beeping fades too. The needle is motionless.

Carlos shakes it again. Nothing.

He might cry. He just might.

A few minutes later, people start leaving the station. Some are talking, and some aren’t, but nobody talks to him. None of them even seem to notice him. 

Until, behind him, Cecil says, “Carlos the Scientist! I thought you left.”

Carlos doesn’t look up. He just sort of groans and shakes his head.

A few footsteps, a rustling of fabric, and then there’s Cecil, sitting next to him on the curb. “Are you ill?” he asks. “The hospital’s not far. I can drive you myself, if you like.”

“No, I’m fine,” says Carlos, and holds up the Geiger counter. “It’s this stupid thing. It’s broken.”

“Broken?” echoes Cecil. His voice holds even more layers up close, when it isn’t being filtered through airwaves. It makes Carlos’s chest tighten.

“Or this town is broken.” He sighs and glances up at Cecil, who just looks confused. “We haven’t even been here a full day, and three of my research team have already quit.”

Cecil blinks. He opens his mouth, like he’s about to say something, but then closes it again.

“Nothing works like it should,” continues Carlos. “Not even this thing. I figured maybe it would, since I brought it from home, but this place . . . it changes things. Like, okay, my iPad, right? It’s been a normal iPad for over a year, but then I come here and suddenly it’s hissing at me every time I turn it on. Hissing!”

Cecil tilts his head a little. “Are they not supposed to do that?”

“No, Cecil,” says Carlos, who can’t believe that he actually has to explain this. “No, iPads don’t usually hiss. And also, every time I open up my camera app, it says ‘Nice try, buddy!’ in this mechanical voice, and then shuts down the whole thing.”

“Hmm,” says Cecil, and takes a moment to digest this information. Then he nods toward the yellow box, still clutched in Carlos’s hands. “And what’s that thing supposed to do?”

Carlos glares down at it. “Measure radiation.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. And according to the readings I got, your studio is the most radioactive place on probably the entire planet. I mean, I should be dead. _You_ should be dead! But everyone’s just hanging around like nothing’s . . . what?”

“What what?”

“You’re laughing at me.”

Cecil, who is laughing so hard that his cheeks are glistening with tears, flaps a hand at Carlos. “Sorry, sorry! Sorry. Ahem. Sorry, I wasn’t laughing at _you_. I was laughing at . . . well, I guess I was, a little, but Carlos! Dear, lovely Carlos. Oh my.”

Another fit of giggles erupts out of Cecil, and Carlos is torn between a perfectly understandable desire to slap him upside the head, and a slightly less rational desire to kiss the living daylights out of him.

Which would, of course, _not_ be a good idea. For so many reasons.

“What is it?” Carlos manages to ask, through gritted teeth.

Cecil wipes his eyes with one hand, and puts the other on Carlos’s shoulder. “I know you’re a scientist, and I’m sure you’re very good at whatever sort of science you do . . . but surely, when you walked into an active radio station, you didn’t expect your little machine to tell you it _wasn’t radioactive_?”

For half a second, Carlos doesn’t get it.

Then he does.

“No,” he says. “No no no no no no no no no no noooooo no no.”

“No?” asks Cecil.

“No!” says Carlos. “It doesn’t – that’s not _scientific_ – it’s just a _word_ , and – I don’t . . . I can’t . . . I . . .”

By now, Cecil looks worried. “Are you sure you don’t want to swing by the hospital?”

“I’m fine.”

Carlos isn’t fine. He’s almost hyperventilating.

“If you’re sure,” says Cecil.

“Obviously I’m sure.”

There’s a pause, during which Carlos realizes that somewhere in there, he stood up. Cecil didn’t. Carlos is glaring. Cecil isn’t.

Carlos quickly smoothes his expression into something a little kinder. A little less accusatory. If a quirk of language is seriously, actually, _really_ responsible for the Geiger counter suddenly deciding to change its function, that’s hardly Cecil’s fault.

“Sorry,” he says.

Cecil smiles. He stands up, and Carlos hears a sound like a knee popping. Cecil’s knee. Popping. It’s so . . . ordinary.

“I heard the last minute or so of your show,” says Carlos. He holds up the counter again. “Through this. Not sure how, but hey, whatever, right? Heh.”

Cecil frowns for a second – and then nods. “That makes sense.”

“It does?”

“Of course it does,” says Cecil. “I mean, if I spent my entire life measuring the radioactivity of other things, I’d probably get jealous, too. I’d probably want to try it out.” He nods politely at the Geiger counter. “Not to project, but . . .”

Carlos feels faint.

“Anyway,” continues Cecil, as he reaches into his pocket and withdraws a small ring of keys, “what I meant to say before is, you’re not wrong. But you’re not right, either.”

“About what?” Carlos asks, in a voice that barely feels like his own.

“About Night Vale changing things.” Cecil looks up at the sky, which is streaked with the colors of sunset. “I can see how you’d think that, but in my experience, it’s more like Night Vale gives things room to change on their own. To become what they always wanted to be.”

Carlos thinks about that. His Geiger counter, wanting to measure sound waves instead of nuclear decay. His iPad, which maybe never liked photography all that much. As long as he doesn’t try to apply logic, it actually makes perfect sense.

“Oh,” he says softly.

“And it’s not just things, Carlos.” Cecil is watching him again, his eyes warm, his smile distant, and that _voice_. “It’s people, too. As long as they aren’t too afraid to let it happen.”

Carlos thinks of David and Azami and Sarah, all of whom packed up and left right after the press conference. It seems like hours ago. Maybe it was.

Cecil reaches out and grasps one of Carlos’s hands in both of his. “I hope,” he says, squeezing briefly before letting Carlos go, “that you stay here for a very long time.”

As Cecil starts toward his car, Carlos finds himself saying, “I hope so, too.”


End file.
